The talent in this year’s baseball draft is rated a little thin by the experts, but in some ways that could play into the Braves hands come Monday night.
The Braves are picking 21st overall in the first round, and since there aren’t clear favorites for the top half-dozen picks like a year ago, choices become that much more subjective, leaving the potential for some surprises to fall lower in the first round.
“It’s the type of draft where you might be able to get the same guy at 30 that you could get at 5 or 6 this year,” Braves scouting director Tony DeMacio said. “We might be pleasantly surprised that there’s a player sitting there at 21 that we didn’t think would get to us.”
A year ago the Braves went into the draft looking for pitching and came away with left-hander Sean Gilmartin out of Florida State in the first round. Two years ago, they wanted to go after position players up the middle and snared Texas high school shortstop Matt Lipka, now a center fielder, in the supplemental round.
This year they’re simply looking to pick the best available players. Their No. 21 pick is the Braves’ highest since 2009 when they selected Mike Minor from Vanderbilt with the No. 7 overall pick. The Braves also will pick 85th (second round), 116th (third) and 149 (fourth).
The draft begins Monday night at 7 p.m. with the first and supplemental rounds to be broadcast on MLB Network and MLB.com. It continues Tuesday starting at noon with rounds No. 2-15 and again Wednesday at noon with rounds No. 16-40. The draft will end after 40 rounds, not 50, as part of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Perhaps an indication of how unpredictable the first round will be is that Baseball America, the draft authority among publications, mentions eight different possibilities when projecting who the Braves might draft with that 21st pick. In its mock draft, Baseball America listed players ranging from college outfielders Tyler Naquin of Texas A & M and Victor Roache of Georgia Southern to Arizona high school third baseman Mitch Nay.
The Braves have always placed a premium on signability and don’t figure to be affected dramatically by the stricter slotting system put in place by Major League Baseball as part of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement. In an effort to cut draft spending, the commissioner’s office is enforcing a range of bonus money to be spread over a team’s top 10 rounds. If teams go over that number, they can be both taxed and lose future draft picks.
The Braves have been allotted $4.03 million to spend among their picks in the first 10 rounds, according to Baseball America.
Teams can spend that money any way they choose among the first 10 rounds, but if they don’t sign one of those picks, they can’t spend what’s left over on one of their lower-round picks. Signing bonuses for picks lower than the 10th round can’t exceed $100,000 without penalty.
What that means is the draft might see an increase in the number of college players chosen from the 11th round on, since high school players have more leverage to get higher bonuses and are more likely to refuse lower bonuses and go on to college.
“We’ve told our scouts, just go out and keep trying to find guys that want to play,” DeMacio said. “That’s pretty much the way it is (for us). And I think our guys have done a really good job. We’ve got guys in Double-A already that we just drafted two years ago. You’ve got Joey (Terdoslavich) in Triple-A already. I’m real proud of our scouts and what they’ve done.”
